Taha Hussein (1889-1973), blind from early childhood, rose from humble beginnings to pursue a distinguished career in Egyptian public life, but he was most influential through his voluminous, varied, and controversial writings. The stories in The Sufferers were first published in the periodical al-Katib al-Masri in 1946, but were banned by the government when collected in book form in 1947. The collection was finally published in Lebanon, and was only published in Egypt after the 1952 Revolution.
The Sufferers
Stories and Polemics
Taha Hussein
Translated byMona El-Zayyat
1 January 1993
144 pp.
ISBN 9781617974717
For sale worldwide
$9.99
This book is only available for purchase from Egypt
Also available by this author
A Man of Letters
Taha HusseinTranslated byMona El-Zayyat
Taha Hussein (1889-1973), blind from early childhood, rose from humble beginnings to pursue a distinguished career in Egyptian public life (he was at one time Minister of Education). But he was most influential through his voluminous, varied, and controversial writings. He became known by the unofficial title ‘Dean of Arabic Letters,’ and the distinguished Egyptian critic Louis Awad described him as “the greatest single intellectual and cultural influence on the literature of his period.” Based on the true story of a friend of the author, this novel—unfolding between Cairo and Paris and through vivid personal correspondence—draws a picture of a powerful friendship and of a young man’s dilemma: the man of letters of the title finds himself split between—and in love with—two cultures essentially incompatible, East and West. In his desperate struggle to reconcile them his soul is estranged and he is thrown—or escapes—deeper into the backstreet abyss of First World War Paris. In the end it is perhaps the very impracticality of his own morality that destroys him.
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1 January 1994
e-book
144 pp.$9.99
This book is only available for purchase from Egypt
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A Man of Letters
Taha HusseinTranslated byMona El-Zayyat
Taha Hussein (1889-1973), blind from early childhood, rose from humble beginnings to pursue a distinguished career in Egyptian public life (he was at one time Minister of Education). But he was most influential through his voluminous, varied, and controversial writings. He became known by the unofficial title ‘Dean of Arabic Letters,’ and the distinguished Egyptian critic Louis Awad described him as “the greatest single intellectual and cultural influence on the literature of his period.” Based on the true story of a friend of the author, this novel—unfolding between Cairo and Paris and through vivid personal correspondence—draws a picture of a powerful friendship and of a young man’s dilemma: the man of letters of the title finds himself split between—and in love with—two cultures essentially incompatible, East and West. In his desperate struggle to reconcile them his soul is estranged and he is thrown—or escapes—deeper into the backstreet abyss of First World War Paris. In the end it is perhaps the very impracticality of his own morality that destroys him.
...read more
1 January 1994
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144 pp.$9.99
This book is only available for purchase from Egypt
A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me
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Spring, 1990. After years of searching in vain, a stranger passes a scrap of paper to Zina. It’s from Aziz: the man who vanished the day after their wedding almost two decades ago. It propels Zina on a final quest for a secret desert jail in southern Morocco, where her husband crouches in despair, dreaming of his former life. Youssef Fadel pays powerful testament to a terrible period in Morocco’s history, known as ‘the Years of Cinders and Lead,’ and masterfully evokes the suffering inflicted on those who supported the failed coup against King Hassan II in 1972.
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Clamor of the Lake
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Clamor of the Lake begins with the appearance of an old fisherman of unknown origin sailing a black boat. Taciturn and enigmatic, he takes on a woman and her twin boys. While he gives away nothing about his past, his undemanding companionship prompts the woman to narrate her turbulent life. Meanwhile, in a nearby village by the lake, Gomaa and his wife have found respite from the dreariness of their existence in the fantastic objects the sea churns up during gales—a sword, alluring panties, a talisman. But when the waves cast up a chest that speaks in a language no one can comprehend, Gomaa is haunted by its voice. As the tumult of the lake drives a wedge between the couple, it turns two neighbors into close allies: Karawia, a café proprietor, and Afifi, a grocer. Eventually, they too will be haunted by the siren song of the lake. In Mohamed El-Bisatie’s lyrical novel, the stories of these various figures converge on the mercurial presence of the lake, which in the end proves the narrative’s true hero. An accomplished experiment in the poetics of space, Clamor of the Lake won the 1995 Cairo International Book Fair Award for Best Novel of the Year.
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Contemporary Iraqi Fiction
An Anthology
Edited and translated by Shakir MustafaThis first anthology of its kind gathers work from sixteen Iraqi writers. Shedding a bright light on the rich diversity of Iraqi experience, Shakir Mustafa has included selections by Iraqi women and men from a variety of backgrounds. While each voice is distinct, they are united in writing about a homeland that has suffered under repression, censorship, war, and occupation. Many of the selections mirror these grim realities, forcing the writers to open up new narrative terrains and experiment with traditional forms. Themes range from childhood and family to war, political oppression, and interfaith relationships. Mustafa provides biographical sketches of the writers and an enlightening introduction chronicling the evolution of Iraqi literature. Includes works by: Ibtisam Abdullah, Ibrahim Ahmed, Lutfiyya al-Dulaimi, Mayselun Hadi, Muhammad Khodayyir, Samira Al-Mana, Nasrat Mardan, Shmuel Moreh, Samir Naqqash, Abdul Sattar Nasir, Jalil al-Qaisi, Abdul Rahman Majeed al-Rubaie, Mahmoud Saeed, Salima Salih, Mahdi Isa al-Saqr, Samuel Shimon.
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